by D. J. Taylor
For a week or more, Captain Raff has been lying low. He has lain low in Soho, and he has lain low in Fulham. Just now he is lying low in Clerkenwell. The state of Captain Raff’s linen and his personal appearance is a testimony to this concealment. There is a fragment of mirror balanced upright on the chest of drawers which is the room’s only other ornament and while he dresses Captain Raff stares into it. As he stands twisting his greasy black neck-tie in his fingers there is a commotion on the staircase beyond the door and an old woman in a black dress whose lower fringes are quite encrusted with dirt, as if she were a kind of market garden, puts her head in the door and says, with a dreadful mock-solicitude:
‘I suppose you’ll be wanting your breakfust, Capting?’
‘Breakfast? Of course I shall be wanting breakfast,’ says Captain Raff, whose haughty tone is quite wonderful to hear. ‘What on earth is the time, anyhow?’
‘It’s jest gorn about half past eleven.’
Try as he may, Captain Raff cannot account for the last fourteen hours. He knows that some of them have been spent in the sheetless bed with its views of the grimy rooftops, but of at least half that time there is no trace. As he pulls on his boots, which are even dirtier than ever and are missing a heel, a thought strikes him.
‘Has anyone – has anyone called for me?’
For on the previous afternoon, growing tired of his solitude and wanting fresh information about the race, Captain Raff had sent a message to Mr Delaney.
‘No one’s called. If they had, I’d have sent them up. This ain’t Buckingham Pallis, where folks sits about at levvys.’
‘Wait there – wait I say,’ Captain Raff shouts out, but the old woman is already halfway back down the stairs. There is a purse in the captain’s pocket which, unearthed and shaken out onto the mattress, produces a groat, two silver threepenny pieces, a farthing, a piece of sealing wax and the ticket which will either settle his debts or send him to perdition. As he stares at these miscellaneous items a scheme springs into his mind that will allow him to eat the breakfast and avoid paying for it. But all this is suddenly cast aside – blown away – quite banished from his head – by the realisation that once he has paid his bill in Clerkenwell, there will be no money to take him to Epsom. ‘Hang it all,’ Captain Raff says to himself, with an attempt at jauntiness, ‘fellows have got to the Derby before without an omnibus to take ’em, and there’s a week to make the trip.’ But somehow the fight has gone out of him and the legs that go tottering down the staircase to a back-kitchen where what smells very like a haddock is being broiled up are surmounted by a face that anyone who saw might have thought to have resembled that of one of the condemned men, who steps up to the block at Snow Hill, where Mr Ketch, or his successor, can supervise his passing from this world to the next.
XXIII
Stratagems of Captain McTurk
We are not, heaven knows, an advocate of female suffrage, but there is one sphere in which feminine influence should be paramount: we refer, of course, to the domestic. If a newly married young lady cannot command her establishment, choose her callers and entertain the guests of her own desiring, then what, it may be asked, can she command?
A New Etiquette: Mrs Carmody’s Book of Genteel Behaviour (1861)
IN BELGRAVE SQUARE Mrs Happerton was entertaining a visitor. He was a rather unusual visitor for Belgrave Square and indeed he had almost been repulsed by the butler and brought back only at Mrs Rebecca’s urgent insistence. But still, there he was in old Mr Gresham’s drawing room cracking his knuckles as the parlourmaid brought him his tea, looking eagerly about him, and by no means discountenanced by the ambiguity of his reception. This gentleman was Mr Dennison, whom the political world esteems so much but whom the old butler, knowing nothing of the way in which aspiring Treasury lords are brought to their electors, had very nearly cast out into the street.
Mr Dennison was a short, sallow man of perhaps fifty-two or fifty-three with very black hair cut close on the top of his head who worked as an attorney in the Borough. This, however, was not his chief distinction. His singularity lay in the fact that he was the Conservative Party’s leading source of intelligence, influence and manipulation in those parts of the capital where Conservative candidates – successful Conservative candidates, that is – are not generally to be found. Modest in his demeanour, frowned on in polite drawing rooms for that irrepressible habit of knuckle-cracking, Mr Dennison was nonetheless a titan in his way. Had he not taken Mr Carstairs – a man whose candidature had previously been despaired of – to within thirty votes of victory at the last election? And had he not unleashed such a volley of insinuation against the Liberal candidate in Limehouse that this gentleman had absolutely retired from the fray? People said of Mr Dennison, if they wanted to praise him, that he was not perhaps a nice-looking man but that he knew his business.
Quite what Mr Dennison’s business was in Belgrave Square, he did not exactly know. He had received a letter and now here he was drinking his tea and cracking his knuckles in Mr Gresham’s drawing room while Mrs Happerton stared at him from the other side of the fireplace with her gooseberry eyes.
‘A shame your pa – your father – can’t join us, Mrs Happerton,’ Mr Dennison said in a voice in which the scent of cockney was very much pronounced.
‘I am afraid my father is too ill to leave his room,’ Mrs Happerton remarked. ‘But he asked that I should give you his compliments.’ In fact, Mr Gresham had not been told of Mr Dennison’s visit.
‘A gentleman that is very much respected in his profession,’ Mr Dennison said, still angling for some hint as to why he had been asked to warm his feet at the fire of a drawing room in Belgrave Square. ‘A great pity he can’t be here. But perhaps Mr Happerton will be coming?’
‘I am afraid my husband is at Epsom, Mr Dennison.’
‘With his ’oss, of course, that we hear so much about,’ Mr Dennison said encouragingly, cracking one set of knuckles off like a cap-pistol. ‘Nero, ain’t it?’
‘He is called Tiberius.’
‘I never read much in the classics, Mrs Happerton. It’s a failing in me, I daresay.’ Still thoroughly mystified, Mr Dennison decided that he ought to lay his cards on the table. ‘Now, what is it that I might have the pleasure of doing for you?’
Mrs Happerton hesitated. She had thought long and hard about what she might say to Mr Dennison, whose appearance and accent she heartily disliked, but now that the moment had come she found that she could not properly frame the words.
‘There is to be an election soon, I believe, in the Chelsea Districts?’
‘Certainly there is. What with that Mr Venables disgracing himself and losing his seat.’ Being invited to talk about his favourite subject, Mr Dennison lost his reserve and became quite animated. ‘Not that anyone will have a clear run, I daresay.’
‘The Liberals will not be putting forward a candidate, I hear?’ Mrs Rebecca enquired, who had done a certain amount of research in this field.
‘Liberal candidate?’ Mr Dennison’s knuckles went off again like a series of raps at the door. ‘An himpossibility. The men can’t agree and the borough won’t support ’em. Why, they say that Mr Huckleby, that everyone was so sweet on for the nomination at York, walked down the King’s Road the other week and had a dead cat thrown at him out of a window.’
‘And what about the Conservatives?’ Mrs Happerton’s expression as she said this was horribly intent, and her eyes sparkled.
Still Mr Dennison was mystified. Much as he appreciated the comfort of the Belgrave Square sofa cushions, the warmth of the fire, into which his lacquered boots were very nearly plunged, and the excellence of the tea, he could not quite see why he was being asked these questions.
‘Well – I don’t mind telling you that there is a difficulty there too. Sir Charles Devonish, who could have had the seat last time round for an old song, has gone and taken a wife, and it’s said she don’t approve of the game – the women don’t, sometimes, begging your p
ardon. And then that Mr Fitzmaurice who was so thick with the publicans has gone smash over those railway shares. They say Alderman Savage wants the nomination, but between you and me, Mrs Happerton, he ain’t quite the thing. Couldn’t make a speech to save his life, not if the Chartists were at the door waving pitchforks.’
And then Mr Dennison stopped and looked at her enquiringly with his tea cup halfway to his lips as if to say: it is time, my dear madam, that we cast aside this pretence and you were so good as to inform me why you have brought me here.
‘What would …’ Mrs Happerton paused, and he saw how finely dressed she was, and how decisive in her gestures, how smartly she rattled the tongs when she put sugar in her tea, and how sharp her eye seemed. ‘A d——d fine woman, anyhow,’ he said to himself. ‘… Would there be any chance of my husband coming forward for the seat?’
‘Mr Happerton?’
‘From what you say, there is a vacancy. Why should he not do as well as – Alderman Savage?’
There was something very like contempt in the way she pronounced Alderman Savage’s name, which did not escape Mr Dennison’s sensitive ear.
‘Why not indeed? I daresay pretty much anyone could do as well as Alderman Savage. But – you won’t mind my saying this, Mrs Happerton – what’s his connection with the place?’
‘Mr Shipperley was elected at Richmond without ever having gone near the borough, I believe.’
‘That’s so, Mrs Happerton, that’s so indeed!’ Mr Dennison was delighted at this sally. He wished some of the men he dealt with were as well informed. ‘But you see Chelsea is a very different place to Richmond. And the folk do like to see the candidate, and think he’s one of themselves. All nonsense, of course. A drayedful low lot they are down there. But, well, it is something they sets store by.’
Mr Dennison’s initial mystification, since appeased, had been replaced by a newer unease. Now that he thought about it, there was nothing outlandish in Mr Happerton seeking the nomination for a parliamentary seat, but he could not work out why it was that Mr Happerton’s wife was doing the seeking.
‘But you think that he would have a chance?’
‘If that ’oss wins the Derby, Mrs Happerton, he would be dragged through the place in a coach-and-four. Best dodge in the world. Better than fighting bare-knuckle or flogging your opponent with a horsewhip. But that isn’t the whole of it, I’m sorry to say. No one ever got in for the Chelsea Districts – Liberal or Conservative – without spending a deal of money.’
‘How much money?’
Mr Dennison hesitated. He was, according to his lights, an honest man. Certainly no more than 20 per cent of the expenses in any single election campaign went into his own pocket. And he was favourably impressed by Mrs Happerton, even if he could not understand why she was her husband’s proxy. So he decided to tell the truth.
‘It couldn’t be done for less than three thousand.’
‘If it is to cost three thousand pounds,’ Mrs Happerton said, ‘then the money will be forthcoming.’
‘And am I to hear Mr Happerton’s own intentions?’ Mr Dennison wondered, rather alarmed at the turn the conversation was taking.
‘You had better come and see him after the race. I shall have him write to you.’
And Mr Dennison’s knuckles went off with such force that the old butler, coming into the room with a fresh tray, stopped dead in astonishment, as if half a dozen firecrackers had suddenly been flung at his feet.
*
Looking out over the ostlers’ yard, from a desk piled high with papers, and with sufficient tea cups to hand to furnish a caterer’s canteen, Captain McTurk was sadly perplexed. Over a month had gone by since the assault on Mr Gallentin’s shop and the identity of the thief was still unknown. Certain items of the stock that had been taken had lately been recovered from commercial premises as far apart as Brighton and Prague, but no one knew how they had got there, and it was allowed that the collection had been very cunningly dispersed. Worse still, in the weeks since the robbery a dozen other outrages had come clamouring for Captain McTurk’s attention. A Cabinet minister had been robbed of his watch and chain almost on the steps of his house in Hyde Park Gate. A dozen tide-waiterships in the Port of London had been found to be fraudulently come by. And amid all this excitement – the Cabinet minister had nearly been garrotted into the bargain – the mystery of Mr Gallentin’s shop in Cornhill had rather fallen by the way. But Captain McTurk had not been idle. Fascinated by the report brought back from Richmond by Mr Masterson, he had taken the opportunity to journey down to Teddington himself and call, quite unannounced, on Mrs Pardew.
This had not been very satisfactory. Captain McTurk had found Mrs Pardew living in the most modest of retirements, in a tiny villa next to a slaughterhouse, and it was clear from the moment of his entry into the house that his visit was a source of stark terror to her. But Captain McTurk had persevered. Was there any known particularity of Richmond that might have driven Mr Pardew to it? Any relative who lived there or pleasant association that he might have wished to rekindle? Had he ever tried to contact her since – since those unfortunate events of two years before? Did his appearance seem in any way different to her recollection of it? To all these questions Mrs Pardew answered no, and Captain McTurk, impressed by the smallness of the room in which she sat, the sparseness of the furniture and the stink of the slaughterhouse, which seemed to permeate every corner of the building, very soon took his leave.
A week later, when the fuss about the Cabinet minister had receded and a man had been apprehended who, it was hoped, might be charged with the assault, he paid a second visit in connection with the Gallentin case. This was to Mr File at his house in Amwell Street. Captain McTurk knew that the safe in Mr Gallentin’s strongroom had eventually been broken open by main force, but it seemed to him very likely that the person responsible would have consulted an expert authority about the lock, and it seemed even likelier that the authority consulted would have been Mr File. Again, the visit had not been very satisfactory. Captain McTurk found Mr File lying ill in bed with the counterpane pulled up to his nose, so ill, his wife said, that he had not left the house for a fortnight, and had been despaired of. However, his wife having taken a message from the visitor that he had better stir himself if he knew what was good for him, he consented to appear in his front parlour, wrapped in a dressing gown.
‘You’re not very well, I see,’ Captain McTurk said, who thought Mr File deserved anything he got.
‘I should be better if I were allowed back to my bed,’ Mr File said modestly.
‘I dare say. You heard about that business at Gallentin’s shop?’
‘What business would that be?’ Mr File meekly enquired. ‘We are very quiet here, you know, and scarcely see a newspaper.’
After that Captain McTurk gave up and contented himself with questions about Mr File’s doctor, which were answered very cordially. But he made a point, before he left, of staring very sharply at the invalid and saying that he thought Mr Pardew had been seen in London. Mr File opened his eyes wide and shook his head, as if to say that invalids should not be bothered with such things, but he could not suppress a little involuntary tremor of his hand, which the Captain saw.
‘I’ll swear he and that man Pardew have seen each other,’ he told Mr Masterson when he got back to Northumberland Avenue, and such was his conviction that a policeman in plain clothes was sent to pace up and down Amwell Street to see if anyone went into Mr File’s house or came out of it. For two days no one did either, and then on the third morning a fly rushed up from the livery stables nearby and took Mr File and his wife away to, of all places, Richmond. When Captain McTurk heard about this he sent Mr Masterson and a brace of constables off in pursuit in a closed carriage, and had them lurk for four hours in the shrubbery of the house where Mr File was being entertained, only to discover that he was innocently dining with his cousin. After this Captain McTurk despaired of Mr File and gave up all pretence of watching his
movements, so that the old locksmith could subsequently have burgled half a dozen houses and gone rolling home in a coach-and-four without any notice being taken of him.
And then came something else which looked as if it might further distract Captain McTurk from the robbery at Mr Gallentin’s shop, and the probable part played in it by Mr Pardew. This was a letter from Mr Glenister – not the first letter Mr Glenister had sent, but sufficiently interesting to require more than a courteous acknowledgement. In fact, Captain McTurk read the letter three times and made a little summary of its principal points on the obverse side of the envelope. At first his interest was no more than speculative. He had heard of Tiberius – everyone had heard of Tiberius – and he had heard of Mr Happerton. He had even, in a small way, heard of Mr Davenant, news of whose unfortunate death had been reported in the London papers. And now here was a man, Mr Davenant’s intimate friend, the grandson of an earl (Captain McTurk had looked Mr Glenister up in a peerage), saying that there was some mystery about the circumstances of his death, insisting that the horse had been fraudulently acquired and insinuating that the deceased had been driven to his own destruction.
‘You remember that fellow Happerton we spoke of?’ he asked Mr Masterson.
‘Certainly I remember him. There was something about him yesterday in a newspaper. Not to do with the horse, but saying that the man he bought the horse from had tumbled into a ditch in Lincolnshire.’